As part of Bowfell’s learning around World Environment Day yesterday, Reception and Year One learnt about the decline of hedgehogs. They found out about their habitat and what they like to eat. In an attempt to help, the children made hedgehog homes at the back of Bowfell’s outdoor area. They used plastic boxes, mud, leaves, twigs, stones and straw. They certainly look inviting and cosy, we hope for some inhabitants soon!
Well done everyone; you braved a wet, blustery and cold day to make the most of this wonderful second opportunity to develop our sailing skills. The day started early with lots to do before we could get on the water. First, we needed to be kitted out in wetsuits, water shoes and splash tops. Then, we learnt how to rig our boats: with the added addition of a boom at the base of the sail this week. After lots of instruction about how to manoeuvre on the water, off we went. It really isn’t easy; so lots of determination, teamwork and resilience was required from everyone.
After a great session on the lake, we headed up through the woods and fields to Orrest Head for our late picnic lunch. Our day ended with a well-deserved ice cream to celebrate a memorable day.
Every year the 5th June is marked as the United Nations World Environment Day. This is a day to question what contribution you are making to reduce the catastrophic footprint humans make on our very precious planet; before it’s too late.
The theme for this year is air pollution. Did you know that 90% of people around the globe are breathing polluted air each day and many children die each year because of air pollution.
Following a whole school assembly on Tuesday morning, each class has been exploring climate issues. Look out for more posts soon to see what we’ve been up to.
We had a most wonderful day on the Lake this week thanks to our hosts Windermere School and the perfect conditions for sailing. We are already looking forward to our second day’s experience next month.
Thank you to all those who joined us this morning for our Gardening Toddler Taster session. It was lovely to see so many families enjoying the activities we had on offer, which included making flower cakes in the mud kitchen, sensory flower soup play and planting a begonia to take home. Our sand pit and water wall were also a huge hit. We are already looking forward to our final session of the year in July- Summer Fun! Please join us if you can.
Today everyone in Scafell has been developing the key skills we’ll need to become the next generation of roboteers, designing programs to make our robots do exactly what we wanted (well, sometimes!)
Fran from C-Stem came in with a set of Lego Mindstorm robots, and we’ve spent the day learning how to program them. We saw how robots are being used today in more and more applications – from the simple – hoovering the lounge – to the complex – building houses, making deliveries and driving our cars. In the future, using and programming robotic machines is likely to form a key part of most jobs, and so embedding key programming skills now is incredibly important!
It turns out it’s really hard to program a robot. Especially when the instructions aren’t clear and the robot won’t behave. Our problem solving was turned up to the maximum as we applied the simple things we learned at the beginning of the day and built them up into something much more complicated.
We started with maths – how many rotations of the wheel are needed for a set distance? Then, we moved on to moving forwards, backwards and making a turn. Eventually, we ended up making a shape with our robots, following the full process of being given a brief, designing our algorithm and debugging the program.
We had a great day and, even though it was hard work, we all felt very proud when our hard work paid off and we were able to solve complex problems by collaborating and thinking things through carefully.
A big thanks to Fran from C-Stem and to FOLS for funding the day!
This week, Year six have been revising and extending their skills in all areas of the NC programme of study for Geometry. They can calculate missing angles in quadrilaterals, triangles and at a point of intersecting lines. They are also pretty amazing at identifying parts of a circle; calculating the area and perimeter of parallelograms, triangles and rectangles; and estimating and measuring angles using a protractor. All completed before 9am on Monday morning – there’s no stopping them!
Here they are in action:
This week, The School Council have been distributing the new playtime equipment that they have purchased on behalf of their friends so that we can be more active and have more fun at playtimes.
The items have been bought using funds raised by the School Council at events like our disco and our Afternoon Tea during the spring term.
The School Council worked together as a team carefully selecting equipment that they thought everyone would enjoy.
Thank you to everyone that has supported our fundraising events and well done School Council.
Bowfell spent yesterday afternoon completing a set of challenges as part of their ‘Wild Wednesday’ learning. They worked in teams and were provided with a description of an animal. Each animal was hidden outside in different places for the children to find. The next task was to build a shelter for their animal. The children spent a long time engrossed in the activity, communicating their ideas, evaluating and changing their approaches as necessary, problem-solving and working as a team! They also spent time preparing our entry for the scarecrow competition we are entering at Countryfest in a few weeks time.
The Book Bus visited us today and the younger pupils had a lovely time, hearing the librarian read us a story and we all choose a book to borrow. This is a fantastic way of sourcing new reading material for school and the selection of new books is second to none! Thank you to the wonderful Library Service for all you offer to us.
